Teacher Beliefs, Classroom Goal Structure, and Girls' and Boys' Career Choices in Mathematics

• In Event: Engaging Male and Female STEM Students: Investigations of Learning Environments and Teacher Influences

Abstract

Objectives
We examine:
(i) whether and how teacher beliefs and classroom environments indirectly impact gendered mathematical career intentions via students’ motivations, and
(ii) how influences may operate differently at individual student versus collective classroom levels.

Framework
We connect expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al. 1983), which posits teachers’ beliefs as salient influences on students’ mathematical choices and participation via students’ motivational expectancies and values, with achievement goal theory (Ames, 1992), which posits mastery/performance classroom goal orientations (MGO/PGO) as influences on students’ own motivations. We extend teacher beliefs beyond ability expectancies for students which are known to predict students’ own success expectancies (Roeser et al., 1993; Wang, 2012), to additionally include teachers’ value beliefs. Value transmission processes are suggested by findings that teachers’ enjoyment of teaching mathematics affects student enjoyment (Frenzel et al., 2009). More research is needed to examine the mechanisms through which teachers’ ability expectancies and value beliefs impact students’ motivation and career plans in mathematics through the classroom environments they create.

Method
We examined effects of grade 10 student-perceived teachers’ beliefs about students (ability expectancies) and mathematics (math prestige) and MGO/PGO, on students’ own success expectancies and mathematical value (attainment/intrinsic/utility values composite), taking into account student gender and prior mathematics achievement, on their grade 11 mathematical career intentions. Analyses were based on contemporary data from the Study of Transitions and Education Pathways (STEPS; www.stepsstudy.org), collected at two timepoints from 32 classrooms in 5 metropolitan schools in Australia (N=436; 51% girls).

Results
Results of multilevel structural equation modelling revealed that students with higher prior mathematics achievement perceived higher teacher expectancies and prestige values; girls perceived lower teacher expectancies and higher prestige. Perceived teachers’ expectancies and prestige value promoted student-perceived PGO; perceived teacher expectancies additionally promoted class-aggregated MGO. Student-perceived MGO enhanced students’ mathematics value which in turn predicted, together with PGO, their mathematical career plans. On the classroom level, mathematical career plans were predicted by aggregated MGO and teacher prestige values. Perceived teacher expectancies impacted students’ mathematical career plans via perceived MGO and mathematical value. Analyses of indirect effects showed that perceived MGO mediated the impact of girls’ perceived lower teachers’ expectancies on their own subsequent lower mathematical expectancies, value, and career plans.

Significance
By combining expectancy-value theory and achievement goal theory, results highlighted how classroom goal orientation functioned differently, depending on the level of analysis. Our results are important for teachers and educational policymakers. By carefully planning classroom learning environments that are focused not only on mastering knowledge at the classroom-level, but also enabling balanced levels of competition for individual students, girls’ and boys’ expectancies, values and career intentions related to mathematics should be promoted. Considering the lower teachers’ ability expectations perceived by girls, emphasising girls’ mathematical skills might be an important step to support future mathematical career intentions and thereby the percentage of female workers in STEM disciplines.

Authors

• Rebecca Christine Lazarides, Technische Universität Berlin

• Helen M.G. Watt, Monash University